Digital Storytelling by Laura Bisagna

I hope you all had a good laugh from the comic-strip-style digital story I created for you! (At least a little smile or a chuckle?) But does it really fit the definition of digital storytelling?  From the database research I did on this topic, the initial definition of a digital story seemed mainly to revolve around creating a short, first-person story through the use of video technology.  However, in the article, Keeping up with… DIGITAL STORYTELLING, the author Sara S. Goek states, “Current trends suggest the definition of digital storytelling has expanded over the course of the last twenty years as it shifts from referring primarily to video to encompassing a variety of mixed-media formats.” So that means, yes, my comic strip is an example of digital storytelling.  WooHoo!

As library techs, why should digital storytelling be important to us? According to Kelly Czarnecki in the Library Technology Reports “…digital storytelling can be used to build important skills.  Like traditional storytelling, digital storytelling helps to build conceptual skills like understanding a narrative and using inductive reasoning to solve problems, but the creation of digital stories also requires the creator to build technology skills through the use of software and other tools. These skills are useful to both children who need them for increasingly technology-oriented future job market, and adults, who need them to keep up with a changing world.” (p.15)

Creating a comic strip is a great way to get started in digital storytelling.  Here are a few places where you can create your own for free:

Strip Generator: http://stripgenerator.com/

PIXTON: https://www.pixton.com/

ToonDoo: http://www.toondoo.com/

Work cited:

Keeping up with… DIGITAL STORYTELLING, Sara S. Goek, Association of College & Research Libraries

Digital Storytelling in Practice, Kelly Czarnecki Library Technology Reports. Oct2009, Vol. 45 Issue 7,

p13-21. 5p.